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 sunshine20 |
Mental health metaphors in fairy tales |
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Posts: 1 (01/07/09 02:24:57) |
Hi, I am writing my final paper for my MA and am looking for schizophrenia and psychosis ( possibly bipolar too) metaphors in fairy tales. At the moment I am
also thinking about mirrors - specifically the mirror in the Snow Queen and have looked at the links on this subject already. Any thoughts on the mental
health side are most welcome.
  Antonia.
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TAO |
Mental Health Metaphors???? | ||
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Posts: 1 (01/09/09 16:22:12) |
Curious as to whether you have friends / family members with such "illnesses"? Did you know that those groups you mentioned are known as wounded
healers and generally end up as shamans, guides, doctors, etc in early society... see wounded healer wikipedia... i have several thousand links and would have
to search through them over the next couple of hours. Also , u state u doing MA.. What u gonna be when u grow up? lol hopefully not a pill pushing
psychiatrist... hopefully you b psychotherapist and practice jung, gestalt, etc.. your dreams teach u more about yourself than any book. i recently had a dream
where i talked with 3 women known muses, fates, norns etc.. see
http://images.google.com/...um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
. Only i know where the sacred tree truly leads for others forget upon awakening......lol. Personally I think our society goes a bit over board in classifying
people. ie labeling. is a tree a tree because we name it such. or does it have its own name which we being to busy, self absorbed, or overbearing know it alls
cannot hear... my tree is the world tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_tree it lives within us all. i like u visit it nightly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trees_in_mythology this same tree is the own put up for xmas. the tree upon
which christ and odin (a seior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seid_(shamanic_magic) ) hung for 9 nights. when we're dreaming
we're all mad. if this is not so why do not think anything silly about vampires, werewolves, 3 headed dogs and the such when your dreaming. your conscious
mind believes that to be reality at the moment unless you've practiced dream yoga, lucid techniques of PhD Laberge, Shamanism, etc.... And even then you
still meet mythological creatures in the dream state. Just the other day i met Pegasus and those 3 muses along with knights and an ancient wizard as well as
the big bad wolf and his buddies devouring lambs .... lol... do you think i might be manic? depressive? schizo? psychotic? I've died in several dreams. ie
ego dismemberment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death ie death to this way and rebirth to another way. i still wondering if
you've figured out which 1 i am manic, schizo, psycho or none of these.. wife and i setting down for dinner i'll add more links over next day or so..
bye bye sunshine..
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AliceCEB |
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Posts: 326 (01/09/09 18:19:02) |
Sunshine20, many behaviors outside the context of fairy tales where we are asked to suspend disbelief, could be viewed as demonstrating some sort of psychosis.
For example in Vasilissa the Beautiful,
her doll talks to her, as do Baba Yaga's fenceposts. In Bluebeard a key cannot be washed clean of blood, no matter how obsessively the wife tries to
clean it. In Beauty and the Beast, Beauty
sees visions through a mirror (although it strikes me more as an early video screen. . .) In East of the Sun and West of the Moon, our hero hears the winds speak to her. Animals
in a large number of stories talk and interact with humans (Puss and Boots, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.).
In each case the behaviors could be viewed as symptoms of some sort of psychosis on the part of the hero, and you could try to match the behaviors with psychiatric diseases. But then we would lose the thread of the story, which is why we read them/listen to them in the first place. The magical behaviors aren't meant to be symptoms but symbols or storytelling embellishments that add to the listener's sense of wonder. In the fairy tale world, the reader/listener expects to see objects move and talk, animals carry human characteristics, and heros engage in obsessive ritualistic behavior, all for the benefit of a story. It's part of their appeal. Fairy tales have been used by psychologists to provide examples of human behavior. But the folks creating these metaphors were psychologists or psychiatrist first, with an understanding of the disease/human behavior to start with that they then analogized to various fairy tales. With my lay knowledge of psychiatry, I would find it difficult to say that a particular fairy tale exemplifies this particular psychiatric disease with x, y, z symptoms. Best, Alice |
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sunshine20 |
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Posts: 2 (01/10/09 01:44:39) |
Hi, Thank you so much for your thoughtful and insightful responses. I am training in Jungian based art therapy. I love fairy tales and am also interested in
the symbolic meaning of dreams. For this assignment I need to select a clinical area within mental health and the fairy tale metaphor my own idea to help
understanding. Often people suffering from psychoses can seem inaccessible to family and friends. In the Snow Queen, Kay's eye and heart is pierced by the
broken mirror and this seems to freeze his emotions. His little friend, Gerda, goes on a journey to 'rescue' him. It is interesting the Hans Christian
Andersen is quoted as suffering from a number of mental health issues...depending on which site you look at!
Thank you Antonia |
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TAO |
Psychosis and fairytales | ||
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Posts: 2 (01/10/09 11:58:40) |
When discussing a subject it helps to define the terms. We all have different meanings we assign to words. For instance; if I were to say the word "chair". I might visualize and conceptualize an old wooden rocking chair and u might think of a plush lazy boy recliner. Another person might think of a stainless steel metal chair. The thought chairs generally have the same functional usage, ie something on which to sit even if it's a torture chair of the middle ages. When u say psychosis I want to make sure were on the same page as to what were discussing. Notice how all the "chairs" are symbolic and individual to some extent to the person thinking of it- much akin to dream symbols. The wiki link that follows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis is the description I'm use to as defining psychosis. In short form psychosis = Psychosis (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche", for mind or soul, and -οσις "-osis", for abnormal condition), with adjective psychotic, literally means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People suffering from psychosis are said to be psychotic. People with psychosis may have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, or lack of insight. The symptoms are similar in nature to mental confusion and delirium. People experiencing psychosis may report hallucinations or delusional beliefs, and may exhibit personality changes and disorganized thinking. This may be accompanied by unusual or bizarre behavior, as well as difficulty with social interaction and impairment in carrying out the activities of daily living. So when you say you're interested in studying folklore, fairytales, dream images of psychotic persons and those who can achieve that state - like a manic in full blown psychosis your in for a difficult task. At least from my perspective. It's hard to get someone to discuss images etc when they're in la la land…… Now u might get them to draw / describe experiences once medicated but they're not in the psychotic state anymore are they.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairytale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend |
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bielie |
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Posts: 49 (01/23/09 13:02:18) |
Werewolves are true lunatics: When the moon is full they become monsters.
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valeriefrankel |
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Posts: 24 (02/02/09 11:41:29) |
I recommend The Heroine's Journey by Murdock and Spinning Straw into Gold by Gould as commentary and Jungian/Fruedian analyses of fairytales. Some things
to consider: Sleeping Beauty's or Snow WHite's sleep is often considered a mental withdrawal to allow the mind to cope after a major shock. Tattercoats
and the Armless Maiden disguise themselves as near-animals following attempted rape or severe abuse, as a type of coping mechanism. The stepmother's
jelousy, especially Snow White's, is an issue of being supplanted or made obsolete as they become middle age or crones. And there are the good girls,
despite abuse, and the bad girls like stepsisters--this can point to flaws in upbringing. Miss GOlden Goose who can't laugh seems to have major problems.
ANd many people under curses (invisible, monster during day, etc) can be metaphors.
Also, the book The Armless Maiden, edited by Windling is all fairytales turned into child abuse stories. Sounds perfect for this. I'm writing a book myself on the heroine's journey (all events in tales end up being psychological metaphors) and I'm happy to correspond. Good luck.
Valerie Frankel
Check out the heroine's journey and all its resources at http://heroine.calithwain.com/ |
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sunshine20 |
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Posts: 3 (02/02/09 13:03:17) |
Hi Valerie and all, thanks for your messages they are very interesting. Tattercoats sounds very familiar, but the stories seem to meld into one as I read every
fairy tale book at the
library as a child. I dont think I have heard of miss golden goose though. I had also thought of sleep as a metaphor for depression. Women who run with the wolves is a wonderful book with a lot of symbolic stuff Jack Zipes and Marie-louise Von Franz may also be worth a look.. A complete aside, Hans Andersen overstayed his welcome at Charles Dicken's house...5 weeks! and the character Uriah Heep is reputedly based on him! Please let me know when your book is published - best wishes antonia |
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